How to Train Your Dragon Fairy
by EnchantedNuns
Summary: Meet the new Winx Club: Melody (The Little Mermaid's daughter), Jenny (Stella's daughter), Cristina (Musa's daughter) and Natsuki (Sailor Moon's spitting image). Together they travel to Pyros, the Island of the Dragons, to find a fairy who recently discovered her powers. But their mission is off to a bad start... Enter Subari, the fairy of dragons, and her Night Fury, Shade.
1. The Neville Devils

**A.N.: Thanks to Ateyer on Wattpad for designing the cover.**

The Magic Dimension is only a small part of a vast, vast universe. Roderick Neville was reminded of its vastness as he peered out the window of the spaceship transporting him to Magix. Everywhere he looked, he saw the same pitch-black canvas littered with twinkling stars and faraway planets. He wondered if one of the sparkling dots he saw was the ever-shining sun of Solaria, his home world. It never rains on Solaria, nor is it ever cloudy, except for that one time over twenty years ago…

Roderick shook his head; no sense in dwelling on the past. That time was the biggest exception in the history of Solaria, when its bright, glowing sun had been tainted by the powerful dark wizard Valtor. Yet Roderick wasn't even born then and his own parents had only been teenagers. What he remembered from that one time he paid attention in history class was that Valtor was destroyed by Queen Stella and her friends, the Winx Club. After Valtor's defeat, everything returned to normal and the sun of Solaria shone again.

"Bro! Look at that!" Curtis suddenly called. Roderick glanced to the other side of the spaceship where his twin brother Curtis was looking out another window. A big blue planet with dark green rainforests, dirt brown swamps, and countless fiery volcanoes slowly slid into view. Roderick's interest was instantly piqued.

"Which planet is that?" he asked his twin. Curtis raised an eyebrow in mock contempt, "I thought you would know, Stargazer."

Roderick blushed. His brother always made fun of him for daydreaming and he wasn't surprised that Curtis had noticed him staring out into space. Roderick just couldn't help being disappointed that he had no powers, even though he lived in the Magic Dimension. He couldn't become a wizard and he wasn't born a girl, so that crossed out being a fairy or a witch too. He wasn't even cut out for Specialist's training at Red Fountain. The strange volcanic planet still intrigued him, though.

At that moment, Benny Purcell, the twins' manager, burst into the boys' private lounge on their luxurious, sparkling new spaceship. Dressed in a grey blazer, white shirt, and black trousers, Benny Purcell could've easily passed for a bank clerk, if it weren't for his purple ponytail and his dark blue-tinted sunglasses that obscured half his forehead. And of course, his caring, heart-warming personality.

"Okay, fellas, it seems like we need to make a quick pit stop on this planet because there's something funky with the engines. Hang tight!" was all Purcell shared with a dashing smile before he decided to leave the twins' lounge again.

"Hé, wait!" Curtis stopped him. "How can something be wrong with the engines? The ship's brand-new!"

"Did I say something was wrong?" he chuckled, in what sounded like three short coughs. "I said the engines were funky. No big deal!"

Curtis peered over to Roderick with a look that said: "Is this guy for real?" Roderick then asked probably the most important question, "Will we still reach the meet-and-greet in Magix on time?"

"Oh yeah," Purcell squeaked nonchalantly. "I've got everything under control! What are managers for, eh?"

 _What_ are _managers for?_ Roderick wondered, not for the first time. Back on Solaria, he and Curtis were the biggest reality stars on TV. Their reality show, _The Neville Devils_ , had skyrocketed in its first year on air and the twins had become celebrities overnight. Why, Roderick could only guess. Of course, their insanely bedazzling hot looks had a part in their popularity. Anything with their faces on it sold like hot cakes, and the Solarian people _love_ their hot cakes. Like they wait in line for two weeks and then storm the bakery plundering all the stocks, grabbing cakes by the dozens, and trampling other customers on their way to the checkout.

"Which planet are we landing on?" Roderick asked, nudging his head to the window where the ocean-covered planet drew in closer and closer. For a split second, their manager felt a jolt of panic, his eyes staring blankly ahead as if he thought: "What am I doing with my life?" Then he answered.

"Some primitive planet with very few indigenous people. Nothing important really. It's just a pit stop, guys," he smiled sweetly. _There's something he's not telling us_ , Roderick suspected, but he had been cramped up in the spaceship for too long to think twice about it. Purcell left, slamming the door, and the twin boys looked out the window with the clearest view on the strange volcano planet. They leaned on their right knee as they sank deeper into the plush sofa underneath the window.

Feeling the weight of his body straining his knee, Roderick decided to sit down on his firm, muscular butt. Not that he was some 'roided-up bodybuilder, but he wasn't going to deny that his brother and he spent a fair part of their week in the gym, which resulted in Roderick's athletic behind. Curtis even challenged him once to crack a walnut between his butt cheeks…on camera. Roderick, still soaring on a testosterone-fueled high from working out, accepted. The footage instantly went viral on the intergalactic web.

Their luxurious yet small spaceship, shaped like a bullet, plunged into the planet's atmosphere. Before the twins knew it, they were flying above a vast cyan ocean. Soon after, they whizzed above an island overgrown by a jungle and spotted with swamps. Then they noticed what Purcell was trying to hide from them:

"DRAGONS!" Curtis gasped as he pointed at a humongous lizard with massive bat wings soaring past them. All over the island, giant lizards and winged reptiles reared their heads to the foreign spaceship, but once they crossed a large, sparkling, clear lake, the dragons suddenly vanished. Instead, five tiny figures on the ground were waving and flailing their arms at them to draw their attention.

"They must be the indigenous people Benny mentioned," Roderick offered, but then he took a closer look. Unless this planet wasn't as primitive as their manager had made them believe, those figures (five teenage girls) were wearing very fashionable clothes. Then fireworks exploded near their window.

"Wow!" the twins jumped back. Another blast of rainbow colors erupted even closer. Too close actually, because the following moment the spaceship shook violently and alarms went off. The fireworks had hit them and now they were nose-diving into a nearby swamp as their spaceship caught fire. They were going to crash. On an island. On some foreign planet. With dragons.

Roderick saw his life flashing by as the swamp became uncomfortably close and he didn't like the images he was seeing. Just when he thought he was a goner, the spaceship jolted to a stop mid-air, right above the swamp floor. After he had recovered from slamming his Abercrombie & Fitch face against the window, he peered outside again and this time he saw no dragons. He heard giggling girls and saw small fluttering butterfly wings and sparkling outfits.

Fairies!


	2. Did someone say 'fairies' ?

**A.N.: Thanks to deethebeanmaster on Wattpad for editing!**

 **A month earlier…**

"Can't we just fly over there?" Melody whined as she stared over the calm ocean. In the distance, the contours of jungle trees on an island were clearly visible. After traveling by spaceship and boat for several days, their destination was only a stone's throw away, but their medium-sized boat had decided to croak at the last moment. Their captain was now trying to fix it and Melody desperately wanted to get rid of her acute boredom, but Jenny wouldn't budge.

"No, because we can't leave our boat here at open sea. We need it, so we can contact Miss Faragonda," Jenny answered in a tone a teacher uses to lecture an impatient child. Melody looked up at her with her teal blue eyes and pouted. She had crossed her arms and was leaning heavily on the railing of the boat. As usual, she was wearing her crème-colored, old-fashioned one-piece bathing suit with its small green ribbon on the chest.

"Well, we can just leave the captain here while he fixes things. It's not like our boat's going anywhere anytime soon," she sighed, blowing a stray strand of black hair from her eyes.

"We can't anchor here because the ocean's too deep and we don't know the currents either. Who knows where our boat might drift off to by the time we fly back?" Jenny argued. She didn't want to take any chances on this important mission from Headmistress Faragonda. They were supposed to reach Pyros, the Island of the Dragons, and retrieve a fairy whose powers had just revealed themselves, so they could take her back to Alfea.

Melody sighed again. Sometimes Jenny could be such a stick in the mud, especially when it came to school. She was always trying to prove she wasn't a harebrained girl like her mom when she used to study at Alfea College for Fairies. Melody thought she was succeeding with flying colors.

"Can I at least swim for a little while?" she asked with a hopeful smile, flashing her cutest puppy-eyes. "You know I'm half mermaid," she added with a grin. Melody's mom Ariel was born a mermaid, but when she met Melody's dad Eric, the prince of a city by the sea, she desperately wanted to walk on land. After going through a literal hell, Melody's merfolk grandfather, King Triton, eventually used his magic trident to grant Ariel her legs. Soon after, Melody came into this world as the 'unholy offspring' of human and mermaid.

"Yes, Melody, I know," Jenny nodded impatiently. "You've only reminded us about ten times today already, but we're going to the Island of the _Dragons_! That includes water dragons. Here, possibly, at sea."

She always had so much trouble getting through to Melody's thick skull because her half mermaid friend was so free-spirited, while Jenny was…well…not. Unlike her mother Stella, who blew up the potion lab in her first year, Jenny was determined to be an outstanding student. So, she didn't want anything to compromise their mission.

Her distaste for loose cannons stemmed from Stella's incessant trips around the universe. While she was off fighting evil and fluttering around as the fairy of the shining sun, she left her young daughter at the Grand Royal Palace of Solaria. Surely, Jenny had never been alone (her dad Brandon and countless servants at the Grand Palace spoiled her rotten), but every young girl wants her mom around at some point.

"Well, if I see one, I'll let you know," Melody muttered before she bounced up, swung over the railing, and cannon-balled into the ocean. Jenny got splattered all over in Melody's wake making her look like a half-drowned cat instead of the Princess of Solaria. Sticky, wet strands of her long brown hair clung to her face and back, while Melody innocently paddled away from the boat.

"I hope a water dragon swallows you whole!" Jenny shouted as she wrung out her hair.

"Love you too!" Melody called back before diving under. _This girl will be the death of me_ , Jenny thought as she flung her damp hair across her shoulder. She held out her hand in front of her and gold waves of warmth and light engulfed her and dried the rest of her body and clothes. Then she went inside of the cabin of the boat, where Cristina was painting a picture of Natsuki sunbathing in a red bikini.

Cristina was violently slashing her brush across the canvas as she colored her rough sketch of their Japanese friend. As she usually did when painting, she wore baggy white overalls, although at this point they looked more like a color pallet because of all the paint smudges. A black beret rested on top of her blackish blue hair that reached until her lower back. As Cristina examined her own artwork, Jenny went to stand next to her and sighed.

"Melody giving you a hard time again?" Cristina smiled sympathetically. Somehow she always knew what was on Jenny's mind. Then again, the two had been best friends since childhood because Cristina's mom Musa had also been part of the Winx Club.

"I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall…only it talks back and jumps into the ocean," Jenny crossed her arms, "Enjoying yourself?"

She shrugged, "Meh, anything to kill time. Natsuki was kind enough to model for me."

"Anything to help!" the gingerish brunette murmured absentmindedly while she adjusted her rose-shaped sunglasses. Cristina continued her brush strokes and Jenny admired the painting her BFF had made. She had perfectly captured Natsuki's foxlike features. It was as if she had taken a picture! Although everybody on her home planet had a creative streak, Cristina was the only one who preferred painting over music, the common interest on the planet Melody (not to be confused with their mermaid/fairy friend Melody).

"I just hope our captain gets the boat rolling again soon because Melody's getting more and more restless," Jenny sighed once again, a deep frustrated sigh. "You know what the worst part is? I can't blame her. I wished we could've just teleported onto that annoying island!"

"Well, too bad they put up that magical protection shield after Bloom got her Enchantix," Cristina said while she swirled her brush in a dab of paint. Pyros' protection shield was put in place a little over twenty years ago and made it impossible for anyone to magically enter (or leave) the Island of the Dragons. That's why the new Winx girls had to travel by spaceship and boat instead of magic teleportation.

Meanwhile, Melody felt rejuvenated exploring and swimming in the ocean. She had always felt much more at home in the water than she ever had in her dad's palace. She figured it was her mermaid heritage calling to her. After a good deep breath, she dove into the cyan depths, but she made sure the boat stayed in sight. As she carefully descended underwater, something caught her eye. Something big.

Melody panicked. She needed to warn her friends, but was several feet beneath the water surface. How could she swim up fast enough? She only had one option: to transform!

From the corner of her eye, Jenny noticed a bright red spot in the water as if someone had lit a massive red flare beneath the waves. Suddenly, Melody burst from the ocean as a fairy. Her two small, but powerful drop-shaped wings carried her high into the air, which made the wind billow under her glittery red miniskirt. She also wore knee-high red boots and a sparkling, dark pink shell bikini with translucent pink fabric connecting it to her skirt. A green bow now tied her hair in a ponytail.

"Transform! Now!" she yelled to her friends, but they had trouble hearing her over the endless whooshing of the ocean. Jenny saw she was panicking, but couldn't understand why.

"DRAGON!" Melody screamed and pointed at the water. Jenny didn't hesitate now and shouted:

"Magic Winx!"

Cristina and Natsuki instantly recognized the call and the three girls transformed together. As a fairy, Jenny wore a yellow and green sparkly shoulder top, yellow sparkly minishorts, yellow ankle boots, and gold bracelets. A glittery green sash diagonally across her naked belly connected her top and shorts through a gold ring in each garment. Green tube ties now separated her long brown hair in two pigtails. Her wings were two pairs of three powder blue leaflets with teal tips, the same type of wings her mom used to have in her initial transformation.

After her transformation, Cristina had four small yet long, oval, bright blue wings that formed an X when she spread them. Just like Jenny, Cristina had inherited her wings from her mom. She wore an indigo sparkly miniskirt (indented like the petals of a tulip) atop pink minishorts, a purple belt, a pink sparkly cropped halter top, small, rectangular, indigo glasses, and knee-high pink boots. Her black beret had turned a sparkly indigo.

Natsuki's transformation consisted of a glittery white seifuku _,_ a glittery dark blue miniskirt, white gloves, and knee-high pink boots. A pink sparkly bow clung to her chest and another bow stuck to her lower back. A gold tiara with a red gem ornamented her forehead and hairpins with red gems tied up her ginger pigtails. Her top set of wings were small, triangular, and yellow like shards of broken glass, while her lower set were long, ribbon-like, and blue like the fins of a tropical fish.

Their transformation only took them a few seconds and then they whizzed away from the boat. Cristina and Natsuki carried the captain between them.

As soon as they flew directly over water, large pointed jaws sunk their teeth into the boat and lifted it several feet into the air. Behind those massive jaws followed a 40-feet reptilian eel with four fins. The boat was too heavy for its jaws, though, so it quickly released its steel grasp and plunged back into the ocean.

"Kuso!" Natsuki cussed in Japanese. The four fairies and their captain watched in horror as their mangled boat and scattered belongings drifted on the waves. If Melody hadn't warned her friends, they would be drifting among their possessions. She saved their lives!

"Is everyone okay?" Melody asked, fluttering in front of the other Winx fairies.

"Yes, thanks to you, Melody," Jenny hugged her in the air above the ocean.

"Hé, I told you I'd let you know if I saw a water dragon," she shrugged.

"That didn't look like a dragon, though," Natsuki said, still holding the captain up by one of his arms. Natsuki belonged to the first generation of Earth fairies that were born after the Winx Club had defeated the Wizards of the Black Circle. After she first discovered her powers, she was accepted at Alfea. Since dragon worship is a key element in Japanese folklore, she was ecstatic to learn about the existence of real dragons in the Magic Dimension. So when Natsuki first traveled from Japan to Magix, she had to see them and learn as much as she could about the fire-breathing reptiles. Yet that water monster hadn't resembled any of them.

"Well, whatever it was, it wrecked the ship, so we'll need to fly to Pyros anyway," Jenny sighed. Their mission was not off to a good start. How would they contact Miss Faragonda now? Or even worse, how would they ever leave the Island of the Dragons?


	3. Welcome to Jurassic Pa, I mean, Pyros

Once on Pyros, the young Winx fairies changed back to their human form. Natsuki and Cristina released the captain, who was grateful to feel solid ground beneath his feet. Clearly the poor man didn't like to fly. Then again, how safe would you feel dangling in the air between two teenage girls? So while the captain fell on the ground and made a dirt angel, the girls discussed what to do first.

"So…we're on Pyros. What now?" Melody asked.

"Some clothes would be nice," Natsuki said, her arms folded across her chest. Although Pyros had a tropical climate, a red bikini was hardly the most appropriate outfit. Neither were Cristina's baggy overalls, Melody's vintage bathing suit, nor Jenny's high-end couture.

"I can fix that right away," Cristina grinned as she fished a small sketchbook from her pocket. As a sketch artist, she carried one around at all times, just in case. With a pencil she started drawing a set of five outfits and thanks to her magic they appeared as soon as she'd finished drawing them. Soon, the Winx and the captain had donned the beige jungle getups Cristina had conjured up.

"Okay, now let's find the fairy who lives here and take her back to Alfea," Jenny declared. She was already headed into the nearby jungle when Cristina spoke up:

"But how? I don't know if you noticed, but a sea dragon…"

"It wasn't a dragon," Natsuki interrupted. All eyes turned to her.

"Okay, then what was it?"

Natsuki shrugged. "I don't know. It just wasn't a dragon, that's all. Dragons can fly, you know." Because of her Japanese background in dragon worship, Natsuki was _the_ authority on dragons in the group. If she said the monster that attacked their boat wasn't a dragon, no one was going to question her.

Cristina rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, a sea _reptile_ destroyed our only connection to the outside world. Even if we find this new fairy, how will we get her back to Alfea?"

"We could make a new boat," the captain offered. Surprised, the girls turned to him. They had already forgotten he was there. They were such a tight-knit group it was hard to adjust to having another person around. "I mean, Cristina just spawned these clothes, right? Can't she also make a new boat appear…magically?"

"She could, but we'd still have no way to get in touch with Headmistress Faragonda," Jenny frowned. The more they talked about it, the more she felt they were stranded on Pyros, trapped forever. The boat was a good idea, but it only got them off the island and not off the planet. They needed to contact Miss Faragonda, so she could send a spaceship to pick them up.

"Maybe we should find shelter first. Or food. It seems like we'll be stuck here for a little while," Natsuki suggested. Everyone agreed that was the best plan of action. Natsuki and the captain ventured into the jungle to collect wood for a shelter, while Cristina and Jenny searched for food and Melody for water. They didn't stray too far away from each other, though. They were on the Island of the Dragons after all.

While the captain chopped down trees, Natsuki collected the wood. Earlier, Cristina had drawn an ax, which created a real one for the captain. Even though Natsuki didn't like serving as a mule to carry the wood, she was happy the captain did all the chopping. Because of her floral magic, she hated the idea of hurting the trees.

She had just picked up the final branch when she heard the captain scream. She immediately dropped the wood and ran towards his screams. Yet when she also felt the earth shudder and heard a rumbling roar, she froze in place. Next, the captain jumped into view, huffing and puffing as he ran for his life.

And then a humongous pair of jaws swallowed him whole. The carnivore that ate him raised its heavy, enormous head and licked its lips. Standing 40 feet tall on two powerful hind legs, a tyrannosaurus rex ogled Natsuki as its next meal. Its roar thundered in her ears while she stared at the gargantuan reptile. _A T-rex…what's a T-rex doing on the Island of the Dragons?_ she thought, flabbergasted.

Yet when the infamous carnivore lunged forward, Natsuki snapped back to reality. She whirled around and dashed through the rainforest. The T-rex didn't hesitate to chase her. Natsuki spread her hands a bit apart while running, so green particles flowed from her hands to the trees around her. The rainforest gave way for her, but grew denser when the tyrannosaur tried to pass. A couple vines even slithered across the jungle floor and tried tripping the carnivore, but the dinosaur was too strong and heavy to be bothered. It simply crushed anything in its path.

Eventually, Natsuki gained a big lead on the T-rex and made it out the jungle. She saw Cristina and Jenny picking oversized mangoes and suspected that Melody was close too. She ran to them as fast as her skinny legs could carry her and nearly slammed into her friends when she reached them.

"Is something wrong, Natsuki?" Jenny supported her Japanese friend while she panted. Suddenly, she realized the captain wasn't with her. "Where's the captain, by the way?"

Natsuki took a deep breath and straightened up, "A T-rex ate him and now it's chasing me!"

"A T-rex?" Cristina blurted, her eyes wide in shock. Jenny grabbed her exhausted friend by the shoulders and shook her hard:

"A hungry dinosaur chased you and you decided to lead it here?! We're not a four-course meal!"

At that moment, the T-rex burst from the jungle. Although it was tired and hungry, it had become raving mad from the chase and wasn't going to let its meal escape. It firmly planted its hind legs on the rainforest floor, straightened its tail for balance, and launched itself towards the three fairies.

"Melody?" Jenny shouted over her shoulder. A few yards further down the jungle, Melody turned around and picked up on the panicky voice of her bossy friend.

"Yeah?" she called back. _Something is wrong, I can feel it._

"Magic Winx!" Jenny screamed, the T-rex only a few feet away. Instantly, the four fairies transformed. Again Natsuki wore her white sparkly seifuku and dark blue sparkly miniskirt, Jenny her glittery yellow and green shoulder top and glittery yellow minishorts, Cristina her sparkling indigo miniskirt and sparkling pink halter top, and Melody her red sparkly miniskirt and glittery, dark pink shell bikini.

They lifted into the air together, just in time to escape the tyrannosaur's razor-sharp teeth. Irritated, it growled and snapped its heavy jaws at the Winx, who whizzed around its head. Glittery particles of fairy dust descended from their wings as they fluttered about.

"Are we going to teach it a lesson about fairies?" Melody giggled, but she made sure the carnivore couldn't catch her knee-high red boots. Although it was a bit cruel, the mermaid fairy liked the idea of teasing the furious dinosaur.

"I'll teach it a lesson, alright," Natsuki grumbled. She hadn't forgotten that it had eaten the captain. She stretched one of her arms and aimed at the snapping T-rex. A whirlwind of rose petals rushed from her gloved hands and hit one of the dinosaur's shoulders. The tyrannosaur roared in pain.

"Oh, quiet you!" Jenny waved her hand as if she was scratching the air. Shiny gold rings hovered from her hand to the T-rex' jaws and grew as they traveled through the air. One by one they slid over the dinosaur's snout. When the last one was in place, the rings had clenched the carnivore's jaws shut. The tyrannosaur was now hurt and unable to call for help.

"Aw, I feel kind of bad for it," Cristina pouted as she fluttered beside one of the dinosaur's eyes. Her X-shaped, bright blue wings kept her hovering in place.

"I did mention it _ate_ the captain?" Natsuki remarked, her hands on her hips. She was leaning forward in the air thanks to her pointy, yellow top set of wings and her ribbon-like, blue lower set. Then a loud roar sounded.

"Where did that come from?" Melody panicked. Her drop-shaped, cyan wings skipped a beat. Earlier, a different T-rex had heard the other's roar of pain and now it came to the rescue.

The following moment, the prehistoric lizard's long tail whacked Jenny out of the air and she fell to the ground unconsciously. Her gold rings that were muzzling the first T-rex vanished. Now two tyrannosaurs were stalking the Winx like prey.

The second carnivore wanted to claim Jenny as its meal, but Cristina landed next to her BFF to protect her. When the T-rex raised one of its paws to crush the two fairies, Cristina spread both her hands in the air. A purple bubble formed over her and Jenny, but as soon as the heavy dinosaur paw stomped down, the bubble burst. The aftershock knocked Cristina out as well.

Meanwhile, Melody and Natsuki were shooting water and floral beams at the first T-rex, but it seemed to bite through the pain. Its adrenaline levels had skyrocketed because of its anger, so it hardly felt their attacks. The two girls were helplessly fluttering in the air while one tyrannosaur bent over their friends and another stood in their way to try and help them.

Right when the new T-rex lowered its colossal head, a supersonic purple plasma blast hit it square in the eye. Blind on one side, the dinosaur shrieked and stumbled against the other carnivore. The two fell to the ground, trashing and kicking violently at each other.

"Where did _that_ come from?" Melody exclaimed in awe. Then a big black shadow flew over the two fairies. They both gasped when they saw the large bat-shaped shadow that had blocked out the sun.

"A Night Fury," Natsuki whispered.


	4. The Girl with the Dragon (Minus Tattoo)

The ominous shadow dove towards the two fluttering fairies. _Great_ , Melody thought, _it never rains but it pours._ Now they were going to have to deal with the Night Fury _and_ the two tyrannosaurs. It wasn't bad enough when Jenny and Cristina got knocked out. No, a flying monster had to butt in too!

"Brace yourself, Melody! No one ever faced a Night Fury and lived to tell the tale," Natsuki warned her. _Then how does anyone know what a Night Fury is?_ Melody wondered. She still prepared to fight the strange, shadowy creature that had propelled itself at them. If the dragon frightened Natsuki so much, Melody had every reason to stay focused. At least this once.

The obscure, black dragon flew at an incredible speed, so it was hard to tell what it really looked like. Melody saw that it had enormous bat-shaped wings, a long tail with bat-like fins, four legs, and a broad head. It was roughly the height of a horse (not counting its wings) and 27 feet long, and had a wingspan of a whopping 48 feet.

Natsuki and Melody kept spheres of energy at the ready between their hands, but right when they expected the dragon to attack, it curved and circled around them. That's when they noticed a girl riding on the Night Fury's back!

"Save your friends!" was all the girl shouted before she steered her dragon towards the T-rexes. For a moment the two fairies were dumbfounded, but afterwards they quickly fluttered down. Jenny and Cristina still lay unconsciously on the jungle floor when their friends landed next to them. Natsuki supported Cristina under her shoulder, while Melody did the same for Jenny. They then dragged their friends away from the large dinosaurs that were still trashing close by.

"Who was that girl?" Melody asked. She still found it hard to believe she had actually seen the stranger on the back of the flying black reptile. In fact, she still found it hard to believe said reptile hadn't blasted them like the second T-rex.

"I don't know, but she must be one heck of a bad-ass to ride a Night Fury," Natsuki grunted as she leaned Cristina against a palm tree. Since she was born in Japan (where dragons are sacred), she instantly admired the dragon rider, who had saved them from the carnivores. It also wasn't every day she saw a girl her age mounted on a rare and presumably dangerous dragon.

Meanwhile, the female dragon rider and her Night Fury swooped in on the tyrannosaurs. The first T-rex, which had chased Natsuki from the jungle, gathered its bearings before the other one and stood up on its strong hind legs. Only to be blasted with a purple plasma bolt from the Night Fury's mouth. The dinosaur was sent flying back and roared in pain.

The second tyrannosaur, which had helped the first one after the fairies' attack, had experienced enough pain for one day and decided to leave. It stood up, eyed the other carnivore (even though it was now blind in one eye), carefully peered at the Night Fury, and ran for the hills. Although it helped the first T-rex against the tiny humans, it wasn't going to battle the much more powerful and infamous Night Fury.

The original tyrannosaur couldn't get any angrier, though. It had had it with the puny magical girls and the flying intruder that had blasted it. Insane with anger, it roared at the Night Fury, which zipped past it at the speed of lightning. And with that, it signed its death certificate.

 _Idiot_ , the dragon rider thought as she saw the defiant pose of the dinosaur. "Alright Shade, let's give it hell!" she told her Night Fury. Shade replied with a growled nod. It plunged towards the T-rex and fired another purple plasma blast from its mouth before its rider jumped off with deceptive ease. As she fell through the air, she transformed.

The Winx girls spectated the free fall in awe and then surprise when their savior turned into a fairy. Now that she was moving much slower, they could finally see what she looked like. She had long curls that reached midway her back, skin the color of café au lait, and a strong, muscular build. Her chocolate-colored hair was tied in two circular pigtails on top of her head.

After her transformation, she had serrated cyan wings with gray tips. She wore a sparkly cropped halter top, a glittery miniskirt with matching shorts underneath, ankle boots, glove-like, detached sleeves, and a silver pointed tiara. All of her fairy clothes were dark navy blue, almost to the point where they seemed black, like a twinkling night's sky. A diamond-shaped, dark purple brooch clung to the center of her navy blue cropped halter top.

"She's the one! She's the fairy we have to take to Alfea!" Jenny cheered. She had just come to when the dragon rider had jumped off her Night Fury. Seeing the girl transform into a fairy gave her hope that their mission might succeed after all. Now that they had (accidentally) found the new fairy on Pyros they were that much closer to going back home. Aside from the fact that they were still trapped on the Island of the Dragons.

The tyrannosaurus rex roared at the new fairy, recognizing her as one of the 'insects' that had buzzed around its head. Yet the young dragon rider was unimpressed:

"You call that a roar? T-rex Roar!"

The girl spread her limbs, threw her head back, and opened her mouth. A roar scarily similar to that of the dinosaur erupted from her vocal cords, but her roar was amplified by magic and sounded five times louder that a real T-rex'. It thundered through the rainforest and hurt the eardrums of the Winx, who quickly covered their ears. The raving mad carnivore wasn't so lucky, though, and felt the roar's full force.

Unable to place its stubby paws over its ginormous head, the tyrannosaur fell to the jungle floor and rubbed its head over the ground in a pointless effort to drone out the sound. When the dragon rider's magic roar stopped, the T-rex looked up at the fluttering fairy and hissed. It hated her kind with a passion.

The girl felt a jab of pain in her heart at the sight of the mad dinosaur. She didn't want it to end this way, but the carnivore hadn't learned its lesson, even after dealing with four…no, five fairies _and_ a Night Fury. She decided to put the animal out of its misery, a decision she'd probably hate herself for later.

"Hideous Zippleback!" she cupped her hands together and blew over her palms as if she were blowing away a kiss. Instead, thick green gas wafted from her hands and surrounded the T-rex. The dinosaur hissed and coughed in the smothering green mist, but an asthma attack was the least of its concerns.

"I'm sorry," the girl whispered as she snapped her fingers, which sparked a small electric shock. Although it was a small electric spark, it was enough to ignite the highly flammable green gas. Fire surged where the green cloud had drifted and engulfed the insane dinosaur in flames. It didn't take long for the T-rex to be consumed entirely.

When the fight was over, the female dragon rider landed near the other fairies, but stumbled a bit awkwardly in her high-heeled ankle boots. This made Jenny realize that the new fairy wasn't yet used to flying with her own wings, but had already practiced attacks. The fact that she had taken out the T-rex so swiftly proved that.

As soon as she had landed, her Night Fury touched down next to her. The Winx flinched back startled, but the new fairy was undisturbed. She even patted the large black dragon and started scratching it as if she was dealing with a harmless puppy and not a terrifying reptile. Shade seemed to enjoy it a lot and even rolled over, so its rider could scratch and tickle its belly. The other fairies looked on in a mix of bewilderment, awe, and relief.

"It's like a giant cat," Cristina breathed.

"But with scales and wings…and freaky magic powers," Jenny added. Now that the Night Fury was so close, which none of them could believe, they saw that Shade had a row of stubby spines running along the length of its body. It also resembled an axolotl (a weird albino-looking salamander) and its green eyes looked like those of a cat.

"Thank you for saving us," Natsuki addressed the dragon rider cautiously, the first to actually talk to the new fairy. Surprised, the girl looked up and the Winx gasped. She had no eyebrows! At least, not in the way regular humans did. Instead of eyebrows, the dragon fairy frowned two rows of scales, a few shades darker than her coffee-and-cream skin.

"Yeah, well, I wish I didn't have to destroy that dragon," she grumbled before tickling the black dragon again.

"Dragon?" Natsuki snorted. "That was a tyrannosaur." Back in Japan she had worshipped enough fire-breathing flying reptiles to know the difference.

The girl smiled as if this were all part of an inside joke. "Yes, a tyrannosaurus rex, which your people would classify as a dinosaur. Well, now you're on Pyros and we classify it as a dragon."

The Winx looked baffled, a reaction the dragon rider had expected. For their sake, she added:

"Dragons are not just fire-breathing flying reptiles," she noticed how the Japanese fairy blushed, "but also the prehistoric animals you call dinosaurs. Don't worry, we're not crazy on Pyros. My dad was a paleontologist from Magix, so I know how your kind thinks about 'dinosaurs'. He came here thinking the same thing, but discovered modern science was wrong because dragons and 'dinosaurs' coexist on Pyros."

"That would explain the sea reptile that attacked our boat," Natsuki considered. It also explained the T-rex. It would make sense for both animals to exist on Pyros, the Island of the Dragons, if dinosaurs were in fact dragons.

"What sea reptile?" the navy blue-clothed fairy asked. She had been wondering how the four girls had reached her home world. She was surprised to hear they came on a boat, but not so much that they were attacked, considering they had also attracted two tyrannosaurs. _These girls sure are magnets for disaster_ , she thought.

"It looked like a cross between a crocodile, an eel, and a fish, and was about 40 feet long," Cristina described.

"And it had an appetite for boats," Melody chuckled, but Jenny shot her a glare. She thought that joke was in poor state because their captain was eaten by the tyrannosaur the dragon rider had just vanquished.

"Oh, that must have been a hainosaurus," the dragon fairy nodded and then added, "By the way, I'm Subari and this is Shade."

The Night Fury perked up at the sound of its name and looked eagerly at the four fairies with a lolling tongue, the dragon version of a smile. Not scared of the black reptile anymore, the Winx smiled in return. Again Natsuki introduced herself first:

"Hello Subari, I'm Natsuki and I admire you so much for riding…Shade, was it?"

She looked directly at the Night Fury, which was sniffing her knee-high pink boots out of curiosity. Subari nodded and instinctively stroked her dragon friend. Melody came up next.

"I'm Melody, a Princess and half mermaid," she giggled. Subari raised one of her scaled eyebrows at that, but smiled back at the enthusiastic fairy-mermaid hybrid.

"I'm Cristina. Nice to meet you," Cristina extended her hand, which the dragon fairy hesitated to accept. Her dad had explained his people's weird habit to shake hands when they met a stranger. Yet on Pyros that meant some dragon could rip your arm right out of its socket. Subari took the risk and shook the hand of the artistic fairy.

"I'm Jenny," said the Princess of Solaria, who also offered her hand, "and we're here to take you to Alfea!"

Subari instantly pulled back her arm. _They were going to do what?_

"Wow, wow, wow," she stepped back from the four fairies, "if I knew you guys were slave traders, I wouldn't have saved you."

"What?" Jenny blurted. _What is she talking about?_ _Slave traders, why would…oh!_ "Oh no, no, no! We're not going to kidnap you. Our headmistress sent us here because your powers had revealed themselves."

"Yeah, we want to take you to Alfea, College for Fairies," Cristina added with a smile. The two other fairies nodded with the same warm, friendly expression on their faces.

"Oh? Well, let me get back to you on that," Subari muttered. She only just met the four girls and wasn't going to blindly trust them, even though they were the first fairies she'd ever seen. She had been shocked when she discovered her magic powers and completely flabbergasted when she first turned into a fairy, so she was happy to find someone just like her.

"What's there to get back to? Don't you want to learn how to develop your powers? You've obviously been training yourself," Jenny argued. She hadn't expected the new fairy to say 'no'. Well, she hadn't really denied their invitation, but she sure hadn't accepted it either. This put a stop to their mission.

The dragon fairy blushed at the remark and looked away. "Training doesn't mean I want to leave my home. Anyway, it'll be dark soon, so you might want to change back or your glittery outfits will stick out like a sore thumb." _Not that they didn't already._

The five fairies returned to normal in a flash. Subari snorted at the sight of the Winx' basic camouflage outfits, which were skimpy and impractical to say the least.

"This is Pyros, not bootcamp. If you think dragons won't notice your beige and green spots, you're going to have a bad time. They have great sense of smell and plenty of them have great eyesight and even night vision too," Subari then pointed to the leather hides wrapped around her body, " _This_ 'll help you more, but you're going to have to rub yourself with dirt and feces if you want good camouflage."

"Did she just tell us to roll around in poop?" Cristina whispered to Jenny. Her BFF scrunched up her nose and nodded. After smearing on dung like it was sunscreen, Subari led the Winx through the jungle. Just as she'd said, evening fell pretty quickly. Nocturnal dinosaurs, and heaps of dragons, came out of hiding and the fairies were relieved they had rubbed their clothes with dirt and feces. Eventually, Subari stopped in front of a small-looking cave.

"We'll spend the night here. Mind you, this isn't my home, just an outpost. If it weren't for you slowmos, Shade and I would've been home in a jiffy."

The Winx looked at the cave and their heart sunk to their stomach. It was pitch-black inside and their imaginations speculated to what was in there, which varied from venomous spiders to trolls and from fairy-eating dragons to a magical portal to the world of _Alice in Wonderland_. Subari didn't pay attention to the terrified girls and strolled into the dark cave, so the Winx had no other choice than to follow. And down the rabbit hole they went.


	5. Dungeons and Dragon Fairies

_The darkness in the cave consumed everything. After the Winx had found Subari, the fairy on Pyros, they followed her to a small cave to spend the night. Yet now that they were inside of her outpost, they wanted nothing more than to spin around and dart back out to the jungle. The fact that Subari's Night Fury, Shade, trotted into the cave after them didn't help either. Although they had seen how playful it was when Subari had scratched and tickled it, they were still nervous about the powerful, black dragon._

"Umh, is Shade going to spend the night with us?" Melody asked anxiously, eyeing the jet black reptile on all fours. It had folded its large bat-like wings, so it could enter through the small cave portal, and its tongue lolled from its mouth like a happy puppy.

"Kinda? He's not going to sleep right next to us, but near the entrance. No dragon's going to even try to get in here if a Night Fury's guarding us," Subari explained as Shade settled in for the night. The black dragon blasted a purple plasma beam to the ground beneath its feet and stepped on the ashes in a circle. Then it laid down, curled up, and covered its body with one of its wings. The Winx collectively breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the endearing sleeping Night Fury.

Next, Subari took some tinder (cat's tail fluff, dry straw, small twigs, …) from a pouch on her hip. She arranged the kindling in a circle of stones that had been scorched black from previous stays. Then she produced two rocks from her pouch: one was dark grey, oily, and chipped; the other looked like a badly disfigured piece of gold. She went down on her knees and bent over the circle of stones. She held the dark grey stone in one hand and hit its center with the other rock. A spark erupted from the collision and fell right into the tinder. Quickly the dragon fairy blew where the spark had landed until the kindling started smoking.

When she finally had a fire going, she grabbed logs near the entrance to her outpost . She arranged those in a tipi shape over the fire, so the flames could grow. Jenny was dumbfounded by how easily and quickly the dragon fairy had started a fire without using magic or her Night Fury. It had only taken her two minutes! Yet she wondered why Subari hadn't used her magic or Shade. She could've had a fire in the fraction it took her using the two stones.

In the light of the fire, the Princess of Solaria noticed the cave's actual depth. It had looked small from the outside, but in fact it ran 36 ft. into the rock wall. It also looked like someone had been living in it. A low bed woven from reeds, long, dried grass, and other plant materials stood against a wall along the length of the cave. A leather blanket, which Jenny assumed was made from dragon hide, lay on the woven bed.

Wooden bowls in various stages of completion were scattered over the floor. Jenny picked one of them up out of curiosity and trailed her fingers along the surface. It was so smooth as if the bowl had been precisely cut by a machine instead of patiently sanded down to a perfectly round shape. A woven rug about one third finished lay sprawled somewhere too. Jenny realized that if Subari stayed here from time to time, she liked to work on several projects at once and was incredibly skillful and patient.

She didn't realize, though, that Subari's skill and patience hadn't come naturally. If you spend your days alone on an island with dragons, you learn to keep busy. Subari was so skilled and patient because she could afford to: she had all the time in the world! Sure, a fair amount of her time went into providing for food, water, shelter, and other basic needs, but those activities had become a routine and didn't take her long to fulfil. The rest of her time was spent either flying on Shade, travelling about Pyros, or crafting tools or equipment.

"Did you make this yourself?" Jenny asked, just to check her assumptions. Subari simply nodded before sitting down on a rock near the blazing circle of stones. The rock seemed to be about the height of a stool and had a dragon leather cushion on top of it. The leather had been pulled inside out, so the tough scales pointed inwards. The cushion itself was stuffed with anything soft and fluffy Subari could get her hands on.

"This must've taken you forever," Jenny marveled at the smooth wooden bowl as she went to sit cross-legged on the cave floor. The other Winx followed her example. The dragon fairy took the bowl from the Princess, eyed it, and shrugged.

"Nope, just two days, I think."

"All by yourself? Isn't there anyone to help you?" Cristina asked. She was beginning to suspect what her BFF hadn't realized.

"Aside from Shade?" Subari chuckled. "No, I've been on my own since I was eleven," she shook her head more solemnly at that. She didn't like to be reminded of her loneliness. She had secretly been excited to discover the four stranded fairies, so she had someone to talk to who could respond with something more than a growl.

"So you're all alone on this island?" No wonder she had been skeptical of the Winx! Also, it must have been confusing for her to discover she was a fairy. Spending years fetching for herself and then suddenly she had the world at her feet. She could now do the impossible with just a snap of her fingers.

"Heck no!" she laughed, which surprised the artistic fairy. She had assumed the worst. "There's a tribe not too far away from here. It's where my mom was from. I visit there from time to time."

"Why don't you just live there?" Melody beamed. "Don't you want to be around other people?"

She scowled. "The tribespeople don't appreciate my presence."

The other girls eyed each other in confusion and then turned to the dragon fairy. With smiles, nods, and twisting hand gestures they urged her to elaborate.

"I've already told you my dad was a paleontologist from Magix. He wanted to study the dinosaurs on Pyros and it didn't take long for the tribespeople to track him down. When he was at the tribe, he filled the minds of the youngsters with crazy stories about Magix and the other realms of the Magic Dimension. This made most tribespeople resent and distrust him.

But then there was my mom. She had always felt stuck in her 'primitive' life on Pyros, so when an enthusiastic stranger with tales about faraway worlds came knocking, she was up for an adventure. She volunteered to guide him on the Island of the Dragons and they left the tribe together. Two years later they came back, but my mom had a surprise for her people: me!"

She closed her eyes and shook her head as if to scold her parents for their mistakes. "If the tribe already didn't trust my dad, you can imagine how they reacted when one of their own had not only left with him, but also had his baby. My mom became an outcast and her people never spoke to her again."

She was gritting her teeth at this point, probably livid at the tribe on Pyros, which could've prevented what came next. "The following years my parents and I lived together in peace. We built our home in a big tree, grew our own crops, hunted for meat, crafted our own tools and we were happy. Occasionally, Maia the sorceress paid us a visit…"

"Who's Maia the sorceress?" Jenny asked. She seemed to remember that name. It might have been from a story her mom told. Or maybe Bloom, her mom's best friend from the Winx Club? Yes, it must've been Bloom! After all, she came to Pyros too and earned her Enchantix. _That's it!_ Maia trained Bloom and helped her achieve the Enchantix level!

"She's the magical and spiritual leader of the tribe. She has some incredibly powerful magic and she's so wise, and friendly too. She was the only one from the tribe who kept in touch with us, mostly my mom. Nowadays she helps me deal with my powers and understand the dragons of Pyros.

But when I was eleven, my parents were killed," she said, squinting her eyes closed for dear life, trying to fight back the tears she knew would come, "and Maia was the one who found me, all alone, crying. I don't remember much from that day, but what I do remember is Maia holding me and telling me everything would be okay again."

"Oh Subari, how awful!" Natsuki extended her arms to hug the sobbing dragon fairy. Subari's loss still hurt despite all these years and she was glad she could share her grief with the other girls. Following Natsuki's example, Cristina, Melody, and Jenny all hugged Subari to comfort her. When her tears had dried, she turned to the Winx and beamed:

"So, why are you here?"

"We already told you: we're here to take you to Alfea," Jenny smiled. This gave her an opportunity to convince Subari to join them at the College for Fairies in Magix.

"No, I mean, why are _you_ here? Couldn't they have sent someone else?"

"Well, we're sorta continuing our mothers' legacy," she chuckled looking at Cristina. The two girls were the only ones actually related to the original Winx and had heard about their moms' adventures countless times.

"Who were your moms then? Some kind of recruitment agency?"

"No silly, they were part of the Winx Club and now we're the next generation of Winx fairies," Cristina smirked. "Our moms and their friends were already fighting epic battles at Alfea when they were our age. Things escalated from there. Lord Darkar, Valtor, the Ancestral Witches, the Wizards of the Black Circle, Tritannus, you name 'em!"

"Don't forget the Trix! They dealt with them nearly every day," Jenny rolled her eyes at how often the original Winx had faced off with the three witches. It was unbelievable how persistent Icy, Darcy, and Stormy were at finding evil associates and time and time again fighting the Winx Club.

"So were your moms Winx Club members too?" Subari asked Natsuki and Melody.

"Oh no, but I sorta thank my powers to them," Natsuki explained. "You see, I'm an Earth fairy…"

"Earth? So you have dirt powers? Or some type of dig magic…?"

"No, no, no," the Japanese fairy shook her head giggling, "I might have flower powers, but Earth is my home world! It's one of the most distant realms of the Magic Dimension and until the Winx Club came, we didn't have any fairies or magic. We used to, though. But a powerful coven of fairy hunters called the Wizards of the Black Circle…"

"Aah!" Subari perked up and raised a finger in the air. She smiled at Cristina and Jenny because they had mentioned the coven earlier.

"…hunted down all the Earth fairies, clipped their wings, and sealed them in their own realm, Tir Nan Og. With the fairies gone, the Earthlings stopped believing in them and eventually in magic altogether. This only made the Wizards of the Black Circle more powerful because their magic grew stronger when that of the fairies became weaker.

Yet then came the Winx Club. Thanks to their Believix powers they helped Earthlings believe in fairies and magic again. This severely weakened the Wizards of the Black Circle. Eventually the Winx freed all the captured fairies from Tir Nan Og and together they managed to defeat the Wizards of the Black Circle.

After the fairy hunters' downfall, magic was restored on Earth and new fairies could be born," Natsuki grinned, obviously happy because she wouldn't be on Pyros today if it weren't for the Winx Club. "I belong to the first generation of new Earth fairies and there isn't a day that goes by when I'm not grateful for the Winx."

"Wow, that's amazing," the dragon fairy mouthed and then louder, "I would be thankful too if I owed my powers to them." She smirked at Melody next, "Now Melody, you're a fairy, a Princess, and a mermaid. How does that work?"

"Well, I'm not actually a mermaid," she admitted. "My mom was the youngest daughter of the ruler of the seven seas, King Triton. Even though she was a mermaid, she longed to walk on land and learn the ways of the humans. When she saw my dad, the handsome Prince of a seaside city, her desire only grew stronger. So she made a pact with the devil. Well, more like Ursula the sea-witch, but same thing! Long story short: my mom got legs, but lost her voice. If my dad gave her 'the kiss of true love' within three days, she could keep her legs and get her voice back…"

"I assume that worked?" Subari chuckled, but surprisingly the mermaid hybrid shook her head.

"Not exactly. Ursula cheated and nearly fooled my dad into marrying her, but her plan failed and my dad impaled her with a ship."

"Well, that escalated quickly!"

She shrugged, "She did take my grandfather's magic trident and terrorized the sea, so she had that one coming. Eventually my grandfather gave my mom permanent legs and she got married to my dad. And then I was born!" she cheered.

"But Ursula's crazy sister Morgana wanted revenge and disturbed my christening. To protect me, a seawall was built around my dad's palace, so Morgana couldn't attack me in the ocean. Little did they know I'd find a loophole and when I became twelve, Morgana got to me anyway. She lied to me and promised to turn me into a mermaid forever if I stole my grandfather's trident.

I'm ashamed to admit that I did," she looked down and clenched her fists together, still angry at herself for believing the sea-witch. "But it wasn't long before she revealed her true nature and after her spell wore out and I had my legs back, I gave her a taste of her own medicine!"

"That still doesn't explain why you're a fairy…" the dragon fairy pursed her lips in disappointment. Melody shrugged again:

"I don't know how I became a fairy. One day I went swimming in the ocean and when I came back out, I suddenly had magic powers. No one can explain how it happened. Some say it's the magic in my grandfather's blood; others say it's because of a magic shark."

"A magic shark?"

"Yeah, fishermen claimed they saw a humongous shark swimming around the palace the same day I got my powers. I just figured it was Undertow, Morgana's giant tiger shark. I wish I could tell you for sure, but I honestly don't know myself."

" _Weird_ ," Subari drew out the word, but then she shrugged, "Oh well, at least I'm able to speak to a real Princess!"

The Winx giggled and then Cristina pointed out, "Lucky you then! You met two Princesses today since Jenny is the Princess of Solaria."

The brunette perked up at that and raised her chin up with a smile as if to emphasize her royal background. The fairy of Pyros was flabbergasted. Her dad had told her many stories about Solaria.

"You're the Princess of the realm of the Sun and Moon? The Kingdom of the ever-shining sun of Solaria?"

"One and the same," Jenny nodded. "So I hope we won't stay in this dark cave for too long or my powers might fade." Just like her mom, Jenny couldn't stay out of sunlight for prolonged periods of time before weakening and even losing her powers.

"Sure, but that's awesome! Now I have a question for you: how come Solaria isn't one giant desert? I mean, if you have sunshine all the time, but never any rain, you shouldn't have any plant life."

The Princess of the Sun and Moon just shrugged, "Magic, I guess. We believe the magic rays of the second sun of Solaria enable plant growth, but no one can tell for sure."

"Okay, so you're the Princess of Solaria, Melody's a mermaid Princess, and Natsuki's from Earth, wherever that may be. What's your home world then, Cristina?"

"I'm from Melody," she saw how Subari looked sideways to her mermaid friend and added, "but not our Melody. I mean the planet Melody, the realm of music."

"Oh, so you can play an instrument?"

"Hardly, which frustrated my mom. Then again, my parents also don't know I'm gay, so I'm grateful my mom is more frustrated with my lack of musical skills."

"Gay? Why don't they know you're happy?"

"No silly, I like girls…romantically," Cristina raised her eyebrows. It took a second before Subari's penny had dropped, but when she realized what the artistic fairy had meant, she laughed.

"Oooooh, now I get it! Don't worry, it's okay with me. Who cares who you're in love with? But to get back to your home planet, so you're from the realm of music, but you can't play any instruments?"

"No, but I do have other talents," she winked before she fetched a small sketchbook from her back pocket. She started drawing four sleeping bags and when she was finished, the sketch vanished.

"Huh, where did it go?"

"Just wait and see," she giggled. As soon as she had said that, a glittering light in all the colors of the rainbow started whizzing across the ground of the small cave. Where the rainbow-colored light traveled, the four sleeping bags Cristina had drawn appeared. "Voila!"

The dragon fairy whistled, admiring the artistic fairy's power. "That's one neat talent! But it reminds me that we should probably get to bed. We still have a long way to go to my home, so you guys will need your sleep."

The Winx nodded in agreement and slid into the sleeping bags their creative friend had conjured up. Subari settled in in the woven bed under the dragon leather blanket. While the four other fairies went out like a light because they had experienced a tiresome, eventful day, the new fairy of Pyros had trouble falling asleep. How could she? The Winx had shared incredible stories about their predecessors, the Winx Club, and their own lives.

When she woke up this morning, Subari hadn't expected to find four fairies her age, two of whom were Princesses. They came from distant worlds that she'd never even heard of. What kind of planet was this _Earth_? Anyway, the dragon fairy was too excited to go to sleep and mulled over everything the Winx had told her.

Remembering all the stories, she eventually fell asleep, but she wished that she wouldn't discover that this had all been a dream the next morning. She realized she desperately wanted, no, needed others around her and the four fairies seemed to be the perfect companions. She felt that, for the first time in her life, she had found friends.


	6. We'll be swamped, in the swamp

When Subari woke up, her cave outpost was deserted. Shade was not lying on his scorched spot of ashes and the Winx and their sleeping bags were gone. Subari panicked. _I didn't imagine them, did I?_ The four fairies had seemed so lifelike; they couldn't have just been a fantasy! She flipped her dragon leather blanket and jumped out of her woven bed, only to trip and faceplant the cave floor.

She groaned in pain and when she looked where she had tripped, she saw Melody still asleep in her red sleeping bag. Subari's heart fluttered. _I knew I hadn't made up the Winx!_ Even though Subari had just loudly tripped over her and hit the floor, Melody was undisturbed and continued snoring. Her arms and legs were sprawled about, a small stream of spittle ran down her cheek, and her black hair could pass for tumbleweed.

Subari decided to let Melody catch up on some sleep and made her way to the cave portal. She peered outside into the blinding light and she noticed what she assumed were the other Winx girls. When her eyes had adjusted to the glaring sun, she saw Cristina was drawing a sketch of a lurid pink, tropical flower while Natsuki was playing fetch with Shade. As if the Night Fury were a humongous dog, she whirled a thick branch around and threw it into the nearby brush. Bouncing, Shade chased after it, caught it, hopped back to Natsuki, and placed it down by her feet.

And then Subari noticed Jenny, whose skin was glowing. Literally. The Princess of the Sun and Moon lay stretched out on the ground, sunbathing in the rejuvenating rays of the sun. After the total darkness of Subari's cave outpost, she needed to reload her solar powers. Now that she was fully 'charged', her skin glowed as if she had glued bright twinkling stars onto her body. Jenny looked up from her tanning and smiled at Subari.

"Good morning, sunshine," Jenny greeted her with a grin.

"You're glowing!" she gawked at the fairy of Solaria.

"I told you I didn't want to stay in your cave for too long," she giggled. "Unfortunately, darkness weakens me."

"Noted," she nodded. "Well, it's good that you guys are up early because we have a long way to go to my home."

"Okay, but we're still one fairy short," she nodded towards the cave, where Melody was still vast asleep. The dragon fairy and the Winx went into the dark cave again, but this time they carried one of Subari's unbelievably smooth, handmade bowls filled with water. The mermaid fairy was still hibernating like a stuffed grizzly bear, but when Subari emptied the bowl of water over Melody's head, the seaside Princess instantly woke up.

She gasped and spluttered and spat out the water, flailing her arms and legs. "Wait a minute, water!" she cheered as she realized what her friends had doused her with. She spread her arms and plunged back into the small puddle of water that had gathered in her sleeping bag.

"Come on, Melody!" Cristina groaned as she tried pulling her mermaid friend from her wet bedroll. "We need to get going!"

"No, I don't want to! There's water here!" Melody cried while clutching the soaked sleeping bag.

"Melody, we don't have a lot of time! We'll be swamped…in the swamp," Subari enunciated the last three words separately, realizing in a fluster what a terrible pun she'd just made. The urge for puns was just too strong to handle.

Eventually Melody gave up and after breakfast, the five fairies set out to trek through the swamp that bordered Subari's cave outpost. It was the last natural barrier that separated them from her home, but the swamp stretched for miles, so time was of the essence. Shade flew on ahead to scoot the fairies' route while the five girls prepared to cross the swamp.

"Everybody ready?" Subari grinned. The other girls carried their sleeping bags on their backs.

"I'm totally ready!" Jenny cheered.

* * *

"Aaaaah, I'm so done!" Jenny screamed. "I hate this place!" She lifted up her foot from a puddle of brown muck and shuddered. "Iew, what is this disgusting goo?"

"That's mud," Cristina pointed out. "We're in a swamp after all."

"Well, it's revolting! Get it off of me! Can't we just avoid going through this _mud_?"

Originating from an arid, sun-drenched planet like Solaria, the concept of wet dirt AKA mud was foreign to Jenny. The fact that she was the _Princess_ of said planet didn't help with her distaste for the humid swamp either.

"But of course, would Your Majesty like a litter?" Subari fake bowed, causing the other Winx to giggle.

"Could I?" Jenny smiled hopefully. But then a tropical shower burst out, adding insult to injury. Jenny got soaked through like a sponge while Melody twirled around like a dervish, practically ready to belt out a show tune from _Singin' in the Rain_.

"What is _this_ again? It's making me all…wet?!" Jenny bawled looking up at the dark clouds overhead.

"That's rain," Cristina chuckled. "You know, you resemble your mom so much right now."

That pushed the Princess' buttons, who hated being compared to her air-headed mom. She glared at Cristina before pouncing her, screaming, "You take that back!"

She floored her and tried to squish her face and black barrette into the mud, but her BFF shoved her off her back and tried to return the favor, to Jenny's great appalment. The two girls rolled around in the mud while their three friends watched the spectacle.

"Should we stop them?" Subari asked the two other Winx.

Natsuki shrugged, making her ginger hair bounce, "Eh, let them work it out."

"Yeah, mud wrestling!" Melody growled in the most unladylike fashion, looking more like a Maori dancing the Haka than a Princess.

Meanwhile, Jenny had pinned down Cristina in the mud, face up, her knees and shins keeping Cristina's arms from escaping. She raised her arms and cheered, "Yes, I win!"

" _Oh really_?" Cristina drew out the words mischievously. She dug her hands in the mud, managed to free one of her arms, and slung a fistful of dripping sludge into her BFF's face. "Who's the winner now?" she laughed.

Defeated, Jenny wiped the mud from her face, her hands now dripping with muck. "Well, at least I got a good mud mask out of it. Oh gosh, I sound exactly like my mom!"

"So you admit that you take after her?" Cristina winked.

She simply brushed her long, waving brown hair across her left shoulder and perked up her nose like a snob, but with a conspiratorial grin, "I admit that I have some fantastic genes."

The five girls laughed at this and Jenny helped her victorious artistic friend on her feet. The two best friends were covered in wet, sticky mud and since the brief shower had ceased, Melody offered to hose them down with her magic. She was already twirling her index finger, which emanated blue sparkles, when Subari stopped her.

"Why can't I use any magic?" Melody pouted.

"Aside from the fact that their 'mud mask' is great camouflage, magic will draw the dragons' attention to us," the dragon fairy responded. The mermaid fairy instantly put her arms behind her back, afraid a ravenous dragon might devour her. The next moment, though, they heard a splashing sound close by. Subari motioned the Winx to crouch and follow her.

Not far from the marshlands through which the five fairies were trekking ran a deep murky river. The girls hid behind a thick bush and spied for the origin of the splashing sound from their hiding place. Soon after, the flat, crocodile-like head of a dinosaur floated down the river, immediately followed by its 5.7ft. long back sail. The distinctive sail on the dinosaur's back, which it used to attract mates, consisted of spines that grew directly from the animal's vertebrae, connected by bright-colored skin.

Subari recognized the spinosaurus right away and carefully observed the Winx to see their reaction to the impressive dinosaur. Luckily for her, the spinosaurus paddled to the river bank across from them and emerged from the water, revealing its full size. The Winx gasped and the dragon fairy smirked.

The spinosaurus was the tallest dinosaur ever discovered, even taller than the infamous tyrannosaurus rex, which only grew to about 40ft. in length while the spinosaurus reached sizes up to 59ft.! Whereas the tyrannosaur could be considered the hulky bodybuilder of the dinosaurs with its heavy, muscular frame and strong, broad hind-legs, the spinosaurus was a tall, lean swimmer due to its much shorter hind-legs.

"Don't worry, I'll handle this one!" Natsuki announced courageously as she intertwined her fingers to form a pistol and aimed for the spinosaurus. Subari instantly pulled apart her hands before she could fire a floral attack. The Japanese fairy raised an eyebrow at her.

"The spinosaurus is harmless! It's a piscivore, a fish-eater. Look!" the dragon fairy pointed to the dripping wet dinosaur, which growled a specific set of grunts. It wasn't long before its grunts were answered by a similar set of squeaks and the shrubbery near the spinosaurus' paws rustled. From the bushes darted an enthusiastic and hungry little spinosaurus hatchling that begged to its mother.

"Aaaw, she has a baby!" Jenny cooed. As soon as she said that, the female spinosaurus opened her elongated jaws with conical teeth and barfed up a whole sturgeon for her young. The hatchling dug in and the Winx quietly continued their journey, so they wouldn't disturb the two dinosaurs.

* * *

Several hours later, the five fairies swerved through a patch of swamp, dense with burgundy vines and swaying carnivorous plants. Yet this part of the swamp was dead silent. During their entire trek they had always heard loud background noises, such as buzzing mosquitoes, croaking frogs, and roaring dragons, but now the area was eerily quiet. Here they only picked up on flowing water and wind rustling the leaves.

"Why is it so quiet here?" Cristina asked. Born on Melody, the realm of music, she was exceptionally sensitive to the absence of sound, despite her interest in the painted arts. She had grown up with a singing and instrumentally gifted mom and had learned to appreciate the world around her with her eyes _and_ her ears.

"That's because of these little guys," Subari whispered, pointing to the swaying carnivorous plants. They looked like large, burgundy Venus flytraps, but their traps were shut tight.

"They're _Quietus carnivorous_ plants! We learned about them in Professor Palladium's class," Jenny whispered excitedly, the diligent student within her bubbling up.

"You actually paid attention during his class? You're such a nerd sometimes," Melody laughed. Unfortunately, she laughed too loudly because some of the burgundy vines started coiling around her. Before she realized it, Melody was lifted off the ground and squeezed tightly by the living vines. "Auw, what's happening?" she cried.

"The _Quietus carnivorous_ hates loud noises! It wraps its vines around loud sound sources and slowly digests them," Jenny explained in a whisper. Her mermaid friend, however, kept squirming and screaming in her precarious situation.

"Please, get them off of me! They're hurting me! Auw!"

"Didn't you just hear what Jenny said?" Cristina hissed. "Be quiet or they'll reduce you to plant fertilizer!"

"It's okay, little fellas," Subari whispered soothingly to the swaying _Quietus carnivorous_ traps. "We'll be quiet. Right Melody?" she said through her teeth.

Melody frantically nodded and slowly but surely the burgundy vines released their hold on her. She fell into the mud with a loud thump and a groan, causing the other girls to shush her.

* * *

It was already twilight by the time the five fairies met up with Shade again. The Night Fury had installed himself in the foliage of a tree and stood out sharply with his glowing green eyes, despite his black scales. Subari scratched him under his neck and waved goodbye before walking out into a clearing.

"Why doesn't Shade come along with us?" Natsuki asked suspiciously. The dragon fairy spun around, causing her chocolate curls to whip back, genuinely surprised by the question, but then remembered that the Winx weren't native to Pyros.

"No dragon ever sets foot near my home, Shade included. They don't even fly across."

"Why?"

Subari turned to the clearing and then back to the Winx. "Follow me!"

The fairies eyed each other waiting for someone to object or ask a question, but eventually they all shrugged and followed behind the dragon fairy. As soon as they stepped away from the trees, they could see an enormous, sparkling lake that burned with the reflection of the descending sun. Orange, yellow, red, and pink glistened on the clear water surface.

"It's beautiful," Cristina breathed, the mesmerizing lake speaking to her sense of esthetics.

"Swim time!" Melody cheered as she ran for the water. She could already feel the mud of the shore of the lake beneath her feet when Subari jumped in front of her and blocked her way with her arms spread out. "Hé, why don't you let me through?"

"For the same reason dragons never come here: This lake is haunted!"


	7. Guess who's back, back again

**28 days later…**

Their day kept getting weirder. First they had to make a pit stop because the engines were 'funky', then their pit stop turned out to be a swamp planet crawling with dragons, next their spaceship was blasted out of the sky by rainbow fireworks and now fairies were fluttering around their spaceship, which miraculously hadn't crashed. What was next? Being attacked by sentient flesh-eating plants?

Roderick Neville pushed himself up from the window he had crashed into. He could still see the condensation spots where his face had smacked against the glass. Then he noticed Curtis, his twin brother, leaning against the floor – now serving as a wall seeing as their spaceship was tilted over – and cupping his nose.

"Auw, my nose!" he groaned in pain as if a venomous snake had bitten him. Apparently Curtis' nose had suffered most of the blow against the window. Roderick crawled over to his brother, pushed away his cupped hands, and looked at his nose. It was just fine.

"Dude, seriously, your nose looks exactly the same! You're whining here like it's broken or something."

"Are you sure it's not hurt? It feels like it's hurt. Can you get internal bleeding in your nose?" Curtis started hyperventilating at the thought of internal bleeding, especially in his nose, a key aspect of his ridiculously good-looking face.

Roderick sighed. "It's fine, Curtis. Chill out!"

"You're not taking me seriously, are you? Bro, our faces are our livelihood, you should worry more!" Nothing was closer to the truth. Few members of their reality TV show audience really cared about anything they were doing as long as they could stare at _The Neville Devils_ ' faces. But the sun of Solaria would freeze over before Curtis could tempt Roderick to such vain thoughts.

"You know what, bro? Now that you mention it, your nose is starting to look awfully _purple_."

"PURPLE?!" Curtis shrieked clasping his hands around his nose. Roderick rolled his eyes and climbed to the sliding doors that opened up to the cockpit. In there, he found the pilot, copilot, and the twins' manager Benny Purcell staring out the front window. When he tracked their gaze, he discovered what they were staring at: a fairy.

He couldn't blame the older men, though; the fairy, vehemently sending gold waves of shining rings at the spaceship in an effort to keep it afloat, fluttered mesmerizingly in the air. Her sparkling fairy costume consisted of a yellow and green shoulder top, yellow minishorts, yellow ankle boots, and a green sash across her belly. Green tube ties tied her long, brown hair in two pigtails, which waved in the wind stirred up by the spaceship. Aside from being powder blue, Roderick couldn't tell much about her wings since they were beating together at the speed of a humming bird.

What he could tell, however, was that his gaze was locked on the green sash that ran diagonally across the fairy's naked belly. He couldn't help it; his male teenage instincts didn't allow him to look anywhere else. It was just something that happened. Even though he usually treated girls with respect, he couldn't control his 16-year-old hormones.

Then Curtis, still cupping his perfectly okay nose, stumbled into the cockpit. "Has anyone noticed the vines wrapping around the ship?"

"Vines?" the other males exclaimed. They hurried out the cockpit while Curtis couldn't help but stare at the fairy above him and have his eyes wander to her belly. She even distracted him enough to let go of his 'injured' nose and he went as far as to run his fingers through his caramel brown hair and wink at the young fairy. Although the Neville brothers were equally astonishingly handsome (Duh, they were twins), only Curtis was shallow enough to consider himself as the Great Dragon's gift to women.

Back in the twins' lounge, Roderick, the pilot, the copilot, and Benny Purcell were looking out the windows. As Curtis had said, vines with large thorns were wrapping around the spaceship. Another fairy seemed to be controlling the stalks as green particles emitted from her hands and descended into the marsh ground from which the vines grew.

This fairy appeared to be of Asian descent and wore her ginger hair in pigtails just like the one sending gravitational waves at the ship. However, her glittery outfit was made up of a white school girl shirt _,_ a dark blue miniskirt, white gloves, knee-high pink boots, and pink bows on her chest and lower back. Because of their rapid fluttering, Roderick again could only tell the Asian fairy had a short, yellow top set of wings and a long, blue lower set.

Though the slow, live stalks scared the living daylights out of Roderick, it became clear to him the fairy had used them to stabilize the spaceship when it tilted back to its normal angle. It felt awkward walking back on the floor after being angled that way, though. Roderick looked out the window again and saw two more fairies fluttering next to the Asian one, who controlled the vines.

One of those two, a blue-haired girl, flew towards him and pointed to the ship's door. At first, Roderick didn't understand why she was pointing to it until it hit him that the fairies were trying to get them out of the spaceship. He checked the door's control panel, but it was fried because of the fireworks that had blasted near the window. He looked back outside and shook his head to the fairy.

The other fairy beside the Asian one yelled something to the blue-haired one in front of him, which made her cringe, turn around, and glare at the one who yelled. Then she disappeared behind the door. As Roderick pressed his face against the window in an attempt to see what the fairy was doing, he could tell she wore a sparkly indigo barrette on top of her blackish blue hair. The rest of her twinkling fairy clothes included a dentate, indigo miniskirt atop pink minishorts, a pink cropped halter top, and knee-high pink boots. Once more Roderick only noticed her fluttering wings were bright blue.

"What is she doing?" he mumbled against the glass.

"What do you think she's doing, genius? Opening the door, duh!" Curtis replied bluntly. Roderick turned to his twin and scowled while Curtis joined him at the window. "What if they're cannibals and they're only saving us, so they can cook a hearty broth from our bones?" he wondered aloud.

"Ooh, get it on camera!" Benny Purcell blurted, seeing an opportunity for a new hit on the boys' reality show. The twins turned to him and looked at him as if he had just morphed into a green rhino in a white leotard. "I mean, be careful!"

Curtis peered at Roderick with a look only his twin could decipher as: "Why did we hire this guy again?" The teenage reality stars squished their faces against the window again to catch a glimpse of what the blue-haired fairy was doing.

"Why would they be cannibals?" Roderick retraced their conversation.

His brother shrugged, "You hear these stories about natives of distant, hostile planets capturing and devouring foreigners…I figured maybe these girls were starving and looking forward to a hot piece of ass."

Despite the tastelessness of that joke, Roderick snorted. "Have you ever heard of cannibalistic fairies?"

"No, but if everyone that came here was eaten, how could we really be sure?"

Even though he should've dismissed his brother's theory as poppycock and nonsense, a small part of him feared for his life if Curtis was actually right. They _were_ on a distant, hostile planet with dragons. Who knows to what means natives are driven in those extreme circumstances? The fact that they were fairies didn't guarantee that they were trying to save them. Maybe they were the lookouts for fresh meat?

Roderick was torn from his thoughts when the spaceship's door burst open in a drizzle of rainbow sparkles. He and Curtis were flung back to the cockpit from the blast and they hit their heads. This caused Roderick's vision and balance to spin out of control and in that sensory confusion, one of the fairies landed inside their ship. Both Neville twins felt their hearts skip a beat at the thought of cannibalistic fairies as a girl in a shell-bikini stepped closer.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," the black-haired fairy squealed excitedly, "it's _The Neville Devils_!"


	8. Sushi anyone?

**21 days earlier...**

Melody woke up scratching herself. Mosquitoes seemed to consider her an all-you-can-eat buffet, stinging her over and over again like locusts pillaging farm crops. Her skin was now a quilt of red, itchy bumps. The other Winx didn't seem to be bothered by the mini vampires, though. This had been going on for a week now.

And to think Subari's home had looked like an oasis in a monster-infested world: a large clearing around a beautifully sparkling lake near Subari's treehouse of awesomeness. Yet the dragon fairy had warned Melody not to swim in the lake and its inviting crystal clear water. She said it was haunted.

An ancient water demon called Varunor inhabited the lake. Varunor needed to remain in a body of water because of its spirit form. To walk on land the water demon used its ghastly water tentacles to possess unknowing passers-by . On Pyros that usually meant dragons (and dinosaurs). Yet over the ages, the skittish reptiles had learned to shy away from Varunor's lake, so the demon remained in its watery prison.

So, Melody sauntered into the dining room of Subari's treehouse still scratching her mosquito bites. Although branches and leaves poked through the windows, the dining room was nicely furnished with Subari's handcrafted belongings. The wooden dining table the Winx were sitting on displayed a breakfast that Melody, as a princess, considered modest at best.

For breakfast the five girls were having a steaming porridge boiled from grains Subari had grown herself. There was honey, jams Subari had preserved, dried fruits Melody didn't recognize (she couldn't even pronounce their names), and coconut chips and milk. As the mermaid fairy scooped up a bowl of porridge, she noticed she was still scratching her mosquito bites while the other Winx were calmly enjoying breakfast.

"Why am I getting bitten every night?" The four other fairies raised their eyebrows at that. "Mosquitoes have been sucking me dry for days!"

"Haven't you been using a mosquito net?" Cristina asked.

Melody's pupils grew to the size of marbles as she realized she had dropped the ball. "Mosquito net?"

"Yeah, the mesh you refused to use because nets are deathtraps for fish?"

The mermaid fairy just stared at Cristina cursing her own stupidity. She had gone full retard. Never go full retard. Then Subari stood up and planted her hands flat on the table. She looked intently at the other fairies.

"Listen ladies, we're running out of jerky, so today we'll be hunting," she smiled as if she had just asked to pass the butter. The other fairies looked at her as if she had just proposed to block out the sun.

"Hunting _what_?" Jenny drew out the last word.

"Dragons," she grinned. Now the other Winx looked as if she had just asked them….well…to hunt dragons because it's not like you go hunting fire-breathing monsters for fun.

* * *

Three hours later, the Winx were hidden in the bushes on the bank of a shallow lake in the swamp adjacent to Subari's home. While Melody was swatting mosquitoes, the other fairies watched a massive herd of herbivores drinking on the bank across from them. These quadrupeds had beaks, conical spikes for thumbs, and three hoof-like claws on their hind feet. This species was called iguanodon.

"We're going to hunt _those_?" Natsuki breathed. The iguanodons weren't the largest dinosaurs she'd seen on Pyros, but they were still three times taller than her. Supporting their 3-tonnes body on front legs that were 1/3 shorter than their hind legs, the beaked herbivores grew 30 feet in length and 16 feet in height.

"Yup, but we only need one, though, so keep an eye out for a stray and make sure they don't spot us," Subari instructed. This meant the other girls just waited until their friend had chosen their prey.

"Could we hurry up? This damp swamp is devastating my hair," Jenny scowled as she tried to wipe some mud from her hand, only to smear more muck on her hands and clothes. In the meantime, Melody was fending off a swarm of bloodsucking, buzzing fiends.

"Will you cut that out?" Cristina hissed after Melody hit her instead of a mosquito. The mermaid fairy smacked one of the pests on her arm before answering:

"Tell that to these glorified Draculas!"

"Melody, here, why don't you..." Jenny was about to offer her fellow princess her mom's mosquito repellent when a wet, slimy frog jumped on top of her head. The princess of Solaria gasped and prepared to scream bloody murder, but her BFF pressed her mouth shut with her hand. Her screams from behind Cristina's hand sounded like someone had muffled a fire alarm with a pillow.

While Jenny squealed into Cristina's hand, the frog's slick feet were helplessly sliding up and down the brunette's long locks. _MY HAIR_ , the Princess of Solaria shrieked internally. She shot her BFF a pleading look that said "GET IT OFF!"

Just when Cristina wanted to remove the unfortunate amphibian, Subari motioned the Winx to follow her. As the girls stalked after the dragon fairy, the frog hopped from Jenny's head on its own. A _big_ sigh of relief followed.

Subari quietly led the other fairies around the lake trying not to alarm the iguanodons. About 32 feet from the drinking herd, the Winx halted and crouched in the mud (much to Jenny's discomfort). An old iguanodon that had strayed from the herd to eat a small patch of grass stood so close to them they could hear its breathing.

"Can't we transform to hunt it?" Jenny whispered.

"No, we don't want to attract other dragons," Subari replied. She held onto a hardened wooden spear that she had carried along from home. She signaled her friends to follow her lead before she jumped up and ran screaming towards the old iguanodon. Only instead of a scream, a mighty roar thundered across the herd and the lake. Startled, the iguanodons reared their heads and Subari stopped dead in her tracks.

"You know, usually stealth doesn't mean you roar like a dragon," Cristina guffawed to the dragon fairy. Yet the blood had drained from Subari's face when she turned to the other fairies and squeaked:

"That wasn't me!"

Another roar rippled over the swamp, silencing any buzzing mosquitoes and croaking frogs. From the air, a rosy brown wyvern swooped in and breathed fire at the frightened iguanodons. The wyvern was a humongous beast with two horns on its head and bat-like wings on its back. Its skin resembled cooled lava, with fiery orange stripes all over its scaly body.

The herd of iguanodons stormed out of the shallow lake and rushed away from the wyvern's fire. Unfortunately, that meant the Winx stood between them and a live barbecue and the odds were not in the girls' favor. The herbivores were pushing towards the tiny fairies while the wyvern chased after them.

Seconds away from being trampled, Jenny turned to Subari with the only solution she could think of. "Can we transform now?"

The dragon fairy gritted her teeth. She didn't want to attract more dragons, but she also didn't want a herd of 3-tonnes reptiles squashing her like a ripe tomato. As the first iguanodon charged towards her, she got an idea.

"Nope," she blurted to the brunette before running head first into the mass of fleeing dinosaurs. As she ran beside an iguanodon, she grabbed hold of its shoulders and swung herself onto the reptile's back. Together they rode away from the wyvern that flew above the herd and was spewing flames.

The other Winx turned around and ran to stay ahead of the approaching stampede. Just like Subari, they swung onto an iguanodon when one galloped along. That didn't go as smoothly for everyone, though. Natsuki karate-vaulted onto her dinosaur with ease while Melody almost got herself dragged along like a ragdoll. The Winx cheered, but they weren't out of the woods just yet.

The wyvern had set its glowing red eyes on Cristina's iguanodon. Her noble steed wasn't the sharpest dinosaur in the herd and got separated, so of course the hungry wyvern picked the easiest target. Ready for the kill, the flying terror breathed fire.

Cristina flung herself off the iguanodon just in time before the helpless herbivore got fried alive by the wyvern. Next, the dragon landed and dug its talons into the burnt dinosaur meat. Yet the predator could've sworn it had seen a bug on top of...and then it noticed Cristina. Flames rolled from the wyvern's maw.

The artistic fairy spread her hands and a purple bubble formed around her. The fire raged on, but couldn't pierce her magic bubble. Yet the dragon kept belching flames and Cristina struggled to keep her bubble shield up.

"She can't keep this up much longer. Can we transform now?" Jenny asked on iguanodonback.

"Fine!" Subari threw her arms in the air.

"Magic Winx!"

The girls instantly transformed and flew up in their glittery fairy outfits. Jenny wore her yellow and green shoulder top and yellow minishorts, Melody her dark pink shell bikini and red miniskirt, and Natsuki her white seifuku and dark blue miniskirt. Yet Subari was still in her leather tunic.

"Why didn't you transform when I yelled 'Magic Winx'?" Jenny fluttered in the air with her powder blue pair of leaflet wings. Meanwhile, Melody and Natsuki were already trying to distract the wyvern.

"You guys have a catch phrase to transform? Seriously?" Subari raised a scaled eyebrow.

"Just transform already!" the Princess growled. The dragon fairy jumped off her iguanodon and transformed. Clad in her dark navy blue cropped halter top and miniskirt, she zipped with Jenny to save Cristina.

Despite Melody's and Natsuki's efforts, the wyvern was set on Cristina and swiped at her protective bubble with its strong tail. Her purple shield burst and the dragon immediately breathed fire at the artistic fairy. Luckily, Subari fluttered right in front of her with her serrated cyan wings.

"Ankylosaurus!" the dragon fairy put her hands together and a large, oval, bony shield with spikes on its surface and its sides lined up before Cristina and her. The ankylosaurus shield sizzled as the wyvern's fire blazed against it, but it protected the two fairies. "You feel like transforming?" Subari peered over her shoulder.

Her artistic friend nodded. "Cristina Magic Winx!" The blue-haired fairy transformed and instantly wore her pink beret, pink cropped halter top, and tulip-shaped indigo miniskirt. Beating her long, oval, bright blue wings, she hovered behind Subari's ankylosaurus shield.

"Saturn beam!" Jenny fired a light beam encircled by gold rings at the wyvern to help Cristina and Subari escape. "So, how do we get rid of that dragon?" she asked when the four other Winx fluttered around her.

"Well, nothing'll scare off a big dragon like an even bigger dragon," Subari reckoned.

"I think I can help with that!" Cristina beamed.

"How long do you need?" Jenny asked.

"About a minute or so. Can you guys distract it that long?"

The other Winx smirked and nodded. Cristina landed again and started drawing in the mud with her fingers, while Jenny watched her back. Meanwhile, Natsuki, Melody, and Subari dashed to the wyvern.

"Deadly Nadder!" Subari aimed and blue and yellow spines shot from her hands and hit the smoldering dragon. The beast shrieked, but its lava skin caused the spikes to smoke and burn. "Well, that didn't help."

The wyvern breathed fire to Cristina, but Jenny stretched her hands to create a shield shaped like the planet Saturn. "Cristina, any moment now!" the Princess groaned against the flames.

"Don't rush an artist!" her BFF raised a belittling finger before finishing her mud drawing. Next, she closed her eyes and focused her magic on the sketch in the muck. Luckily, Melody and Natsuki saw Jenny's peril and kicked into gear.

"Let's put out this fire! Hydropump!" Melody exclaimed. A water beam gushed from her hands and counteracted the wyvern's fire. The pressurized water even pushed back the flames into the dragon's maw and extinguished them.

"Poison Ivy!" Natsuki flung a seed to the wyvern and it latched onto the dragon's mouth. Vines grew from the seed, wrapped around the extinguished maw, and shut it tightly.

"Nice teamwork!" Melody high-fived Natsuki. The mermaid fairy's drop-shaped wings kept her fluttering in place next to the Japanese fairy's small, yellow top set of wings and long, blue lower set.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Subari pointed to the wyvern, which was heating up its snout. Melody's dripping water evaporated and Natsuki's vines burned and disintegrated. The rosy brown dragon growled and its red eyes flared.

"Cristina?" Jenny peered over her shoulders.

"Done! Illusio!" Two purple lights whirled from Cristina's mud sketch and started drawing a gargantuan monster - five times the size of the wyvern - in the sky. The image materialized and the vicious colossal monster roared, which scared the living daylights out of the smaller dragon. It immediately forgot about its kill and scurried off. Seconds later, the ginormous monster illusion vanished into thin air.

"Good job!" Melody gave a thumbs up with a grin.

"Thanks!" Cristina breathed a sigh of relief before falling down flat on her ass in the mud. She was exhausted.

"Okay, but next time, let's just get some sushi," Natsuki offered.


	9. cue Eye Of The Tiger

After the Winx scared off the wyvern, they were left with the iguanodon that was burned to a crisp. That was actually in their favor because they had planned on hunting one after all. Now they didn't even have to kill or cook it because the wyvern had done it for them. All that remained was cutting the iguanodon up and drying the meat, so it would last longer.

So, Subari reassumed her role as survival expert and told the other fairies what to do. Wood had to be collected to build fires to dry the meat while the iguanodon carcass had to be cut into jerky-size strips. Because Natsuki hated hurting trees for their wood (and she had a bad experience collecting wood in the past), she volunteered to cut up the carcass. Subari showed her and Cristina the ropes while the two princesses searched for kindling.

When Melody and Jenny each returned with a big bundle of firewood in their arms, Subari went over to them and helped them set up the fires. Jenny had arranged a couple branches in a tipi-shape and Subari took out her equipment to start a fire. Last time she did this, Jenny had wondered why Subari didn't use her magic, but now she actually asked her.

"Use magic to start a fire? Why? I'm perfectly fine with my pieces of flint and fool's gold," the dragon fairy shrugged.

"But with magic you'd just need the snap of a finger," Jenny beamed. "I mean, I know you wanted time to think about joining us at Alfea, but don't you want to learn to control your powers?"

Subari frowned and thought about it. She had gotten to know the Winx and really felt part of the group. She didn't know what she'd do if they left. She had also seen their magic in action, which had come in handy against the wyvern. Her own magic had even taken out a T. rex. _Why am I hesitating?_ she asked herself.

"Okay, fine. Show me how to start a fire with the snap of a finger."

"Show you? Better yet, I'll teach you!", the Princess of Solaria scooted over to the dragon fairy, "Now from what I've seen from your powers, you need to say the name of a dinosaur/dragon, right?"

Subari nodded, so Jenny continued. "Well, point your finger to the kindling and say the name of a fire-breathing dragon. Picture the dragon's fire coming from your finger and lighting the branches."

Subari aimed her right index finger at the tipi of wood, closed her eyes, and imagined fire shooting from her finger. "Gronckle!"

A big fireball shot from her hand and cannonballed into the swamp floor near where the other Winx were cutting up the iguanodon. Her attack missed them by a hair.

"Hé, watch it!" Cristina shouted back, sitting closest to the smoldering crater where the fireball hit.

"Sorry!", Subari waved apologetically before whispering to Jenny, "Maybe I should have picked a weaker dragon?"

"You think?" she raised an eyebrow. The dragon fairy repeated the exercise, but this time she named a different dragon:

"Terrible Terror!"

With great accuracy, a beam of fire shot from Subari's index finger and lit the kindling. The dragon fairy jumped up and cheered, "I did it!"

"Good job!" Jenny applauded. "Hé, how about this: you teach us how to survive on Pyros and we'll teach you magic?"

"Deal!"

* * *

The following week, Subari and the other Winx exchanged a number of lessons. Subari first taught the girls how to place fish traps. Wading in lakes and setting up the traps was all fine and dandy, but collecting the fish caused some problems. At least with Melody. Apparently, the point of fish traps (trapping fish) didn't fully resonate with her. Instead of pulling the traps from the water, she opened all of them and screamed:

"Swim, my pretties, swim!"

You can imagine the facepalms of the other fairies. The Winx then taught Subari a simple transportation spell. Cristina sent a stream of rainbow sparkles to a tree and it slid a couple feet sideways in a rainbow burst. When Subari tried to copy her, though, the tree caught fire. You can imagine how Natsuki cried.

After they put out the fire and dried Natsuki's tears, the Winx moved on to growing crops in Subari's garden. The girls first harvested the grains, fruits, and vegetables that were ripe for the picking. Then they pulled out weeds, tilled the ground, and sowed seeds, which they watered. Everything went A-Okay…until Natsuki suggested to use her magic to speed up the process.

Within seconds, all the crops Subari had planted had skyrocketed and overgrown her entire garden. The fairies were surrounded by a maze of corn, berry bushes, and vegetables the size of trees. The only way they got out was by calling "Marco?" "Polo!" to each other.

Next up, Subari got target practice. Jenny made several gold rings hover in the air and constantly fly about, so Subari had to hit moving targets. The first couple of times she didn't hit any of them, but the more she practiced, the more accurate she landed her shots. Eventually, when Subari called out "Deadly Nadder!" and shot blue and yellow spikes from her hand, the projectiles managed to hit all of Jenny's whizzing rings at the same time. That's when the Winx decided to give Subari a real challenge.

* * *

On a savanna plain, somewhere on the outskirts of Pyros, the fairies set up their test. They chose the savanna biome, so they would have enough room and so any attack that misfired wouldn't harm Pyros' ecosystem too much. Jenny's gold rings were scattered about the plains, but this time they were much wider and they all hovered in place. Already transformed, Subari stood ready for the test while Shade hopped through the savanna chasing after a butterfly.

"What we're going to do now is similar to an exam we had at Alfea," Jenny explained. "In a minute, you're going to have to fly through the rings all over the terrain. We are going to put obstacles in your way and it's your job to avoid them without the use of magic. If you use magic, you lose. If you hit the ground or one of the rings, you lose as well. Clear?"

Subari nodded. "Got it! Let's rock this thing!"

"As soon as I launch a firework, you can start the test," Cristina said with her right arm in the air. "Ready? Set? Go!" A firework propelled from her raised arm and exploded in a burst of rainbow sparkles. Subari pushed off and zipped through the air.

She flew through the first two golden rings unhindered, but then Jenny nodded to Melody to create the first obstacle. The mermaid fairy knelt on the savanna floor and pressed her hands to the ground.

"Geysers!" she shouted and a blue energy wave rippled through the earth. Between Subari and the next hovering ring, the ground started to rumble. Big geysers broke through the surface and gushed beams of hot water to the sky. Subari nearly got hit by the first geyser that erupted, but she braked her fluttering wings just in time. The water spat up before her, but she continued flying. She zigzagged past the other erupting geysers and made it through the next golden ring.

"Nice dodging, Subari!", Melody cheered and then she turned to Cristina, "Your turn."

Cristina took out her sketchbook and revealed a drawing of a shrieking murder of crows. She blew over the drawing and the black sketches glided across the paper, became real when they fell off the page, and flew to Subari. A thick flock of screeching birds streamed around the dragon fairy and closed her in with their black feathers.

Subari had no clue how to handle this situation. The crows were everywhere around her and their endless squawks hurt her ears so much she couldn't focus. She covered her ears and just stayed hovering at the center of a storm of caws, wings, and claws.

"She's freaking out. Should I stop?" Cristina asked worried. Shade was worried too and prepared to torpedo into the murder, but Jenny stuck out her hand.

"No, give her a little time. She can think of a way out," Jenny frowned because she wasn't so sure anymore. _Maybe we rushed her?_ "Come on, Subari, you can do this!"

The dragon fairy forced herself to look around her, to find a way out of the murder of crows. Then she noticed that no birds were flying underneath her. She let her serrated wings stop fluttering and fell through the hole in the flock beneath her.

"Oh no, Subari!" Cristina gasped as she saw her friend fall through the air. Yet when Subari was well out of the crows' reach, she beat her wings together again and in a loop, she whizzed away from the screeching flock and through the next golden ring. As soon as she made it, Cristina clapped her hands and the illusion of the crows vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Well done, Subari! I knew you could figure a way out!" Jenny cheered while the other girls jumped up and down. Shade even let out a celebratory yelp.

"Is that all you got?", Subari shrugged as she fluttered by nonchalantly, "This challenge is a breeze!"

"Then we'll just have to amp up the difficulty. Roots!" Natsuki pointed to the savanna floor between Subari and the last hovering ring and a thick brown root slithered out of the ground like a deadly black mamba. It then lunged for Subari and grabbed her by the ankle. She tried to break free by fluttering as hard as she could, but the root only let go after she kicked it with the heel of the ankle boot on her other foot.

Subari sped off, but the root came after her, growing and growing, and stayed close on her heels. She flew as fast as she could and dodged every strike of the root. She flew left, she flew right, up, down, all over the place. She even fluttered back through a previous gold ring and doubled back to the next one while the root kept chasing her. She went out of her way to take every turn she could, but then she finally stopped and hovered in place in front of the last gold ring.

And the root? It stopped too. Subari had flown in such a way that she had tied the root up in its own tendril. Now she just slid through the final gold ring and completed the challenge. Proud of herself, she fluttered in place with her hands on her hips while her fairy friends applauded and told her how well she'd done.

Yet Shade suddenly growled at something in the distance. A heavily armor-plated dinosaur was trudging its way through the savanna grass. It walked on all fours, was 20ft. in length, and had a big club at the end of its tail. Spikes ran all over the reptile's armor-plated back, but the animal was a harmless herbivore.

"Ankylosaurus!" Subari snarled, triggered by the dinosaur that was a living tank. The dragon fairy felt her anger rising and flew to the reptile that hadn't done anything wrong. The other Winx didn't understand Subari's reaction at all and ran after her with Shade on their heels. When the girls had caught up with their friend, she was already attacking the innocent creature.

"Monstrous Nightmare!" she roared as she shot fire bolts at the helpless dinosaur. Most of her attacks bounced off the ankylosaurus' armor, though. This only made Subari angrier and she kept firing at the herbivore.

"Subari, what are you doing?" Jenny yelled.

"It hasn't done anything. What's the matter with you?" Cristina shouted.

"Stop! You're hurting it!" Natsuki cried.

"Talk to us!" Melody hollered.

Yet the dragon fairy was deaf to their pleas and kept attacking the harmless ankylosaurus for a reason the Winx didn't know, but Subari hated the dinosaur from the bottom of her heart. What its kind had done to her was unforgivable! Even after all these years she still felt the pain and the hate. This ankylosaurus had to pay for what that other one had done to her a long time ago.

Subari's strikes were increasing in strength and hurting the herbivore more and more. The ankylosaurus couldn't take the fire the dragon fairy was sending to it, but she was only warming up. Fire beams belched from her hands and engulfed the poor dinosaur in flames. She was roasting it in its own armor.

She had gotten so angry and so blind with hate that she had lost all control over herself and her powers. A fire from deep within Subari's soul started burning brighter and needed a way to be released. It needed to burst free! Her skin began catching fire, but without hurting her, as if it were merely dancing its way all over her body.

The Winx looked on in horror as their friend hovered in the fetal position and became the center of a big ball of fire. Flames surrounded her like the murder of crows had. By now the ankylosaurus was already dead and boiled in its own shell, but it still wasn't enough for Subari and for the fire that raged within her and that now raged on her and all around her.

"Subari, stop!" Jenny screamed, but it was too late. In a final strike, Subari spread her limbs apart and all the fire that had built up around her was sent towards the dead ankylosaurus in a giant burst of pure energy. She could see a massive explosion of fire annihilating anything in its path and then everything went dark before her eyes.


	10. Under the (Magic) Dome

When Subari woke up, she was lying on her bed in her treehouse bedroom. She didn't remember getting into bed, let alone going to sleep. As a matter of fact, she didn't even remember getting home! She pushed herself up, but felt her arms give way and fell back into bed. She was exhausted. _What had happened?_

"You're awake," she heard Cristina's voice say. Subari turned to the door, where there had actually never been a door, and saw her artistic friend carry a wooden bowl. Cristina frowned and came over to Subari's bed. "When did you wake up?"

"Just now. Umh, what happened? How did we get back?"

"You don't remember? Anything at all?"

"I remember passing you guys' test, but everything after that is a blur. What's in the bowl?" she nodded towards the hand-carved bowl Cristina was holding.

"Oh! This is just some broth. We've been trying to keep you fed because there wasn't much else we could do."

Subari took the bowl, but when she sipped it, the broth was barely lukewarm. "This is practically cold!"

"Yeah, I know, but we weren't sure what to do. We didn't want to wake you up all startled from the heat or accidentally burn you with hot broth. Not unlike what you did with that ankylosaurus," Cristina rambled, but she bit her lip when she finally mentioned the elephant in the room.

"Ankylosaurus?" Similar to when she had seen the dinosaur, Subari was triggered by the reptile's name, only this time it wasn't rage, but memories that flooded her. She saw herself attacking the ankylosaurus…burning it…killing it…She saw the flames that had engulfed her, but hadn't seemed to have hurt her. She saw the enormous burst of energy…and she thought she saw the energy had been shaped like a dragon.

"Is it all coming back to you?" Cristina asked, but Subari just nodded. "I'll call the others."

* * *

A little later, Subari was surrounded by the other Winx. She had wrapped her arms around her legs and was avoiding eye contact with her friends.

"I have to tell you guys something," she managed to utter.

"Like why you attacked that harmless dinosaur?" Jenny shot back. She was disappointed in her friend because she had killed an innocent creature, even though fairies were supposed to protect all innocent life.

"Yes, it's something I haven't told anyone before, mostly because…well…who was I going to tell? Anyway, do you remember that I told you my parents were dead?"

"Yeah, you said they were killed, but that you didn't remember much of that day," Natsuki recalled.

Subari nodded. "That's partially true. I don't remember much of the day that my parents were killed, but the bits and pieces that I do remember were seared into my memory. The day started out just like any other day: I woke up, mom made breakfast and then we all went to a triceratops herd nearby for my dad's observations. Everything was normal, just the way it had always been.

When we got back from the triceratops herd, my mom told me to go fetch some vegetables from the garden for lunch. It was a lovely day, so I didn't rush to get back. I lingered in the garden and ate a couple berries and I remember thinking: 'I hope mom doesn't find out I snacked before lunch'," Subari smiled as she reminisced about her innocent youth.

"When I finally headed back home, I saw our stuff scattered over the grass as if a whirlwind had blown it from our treehouse or something big had stormed through. I called for my parents, but they didn't answer, so I ran around looking for them and that's when I saw the ankylosaurus.

It was standing near the lake and swinging its club from side to side trying to swipe at something. I couldn't make out what exactly until I got closer and saw my dad standing in front of it. And then behind him I saw my mom. She was lying on the ground and she wasn't moving and there was so much blood I…" tears were streaming down Subari's cheeks as she choked on her own words.

Her story and tears made Natsuki cry too, who wept into Melody's shoulder while the mermaid fairy closed her eyes and rested her head on top of her friend's. Cristina clung to Jenny as the both of them looked at their dragon fairy friend with tears in their eyes. Yet Subari wasn't finished.

"I tried to run faster to get to my parents, but the ankylosaurus had already swung its club around and my dad couldn't avoid it. Before my dad's body even hit the ground, the ankylosaurus had turned to me and it started to charge at me. I thought it was going to kill me like my parents, but then a big light hit it from the side. It was Maia the Sorceress.

She had just left the swamp when she saw the ankylosaurus kill my dad. She quickly cast a spell to stop the ankylosaurus before it got to me. Then she swung her staff around and banished the ankylosaurus to the astral plane with a powerful strike. That's when I fainted because I was so overwhelmed from everything that had happened.

Next thing I know, Maia is holding me in her arms, rocking me and telling me everything will be okay. And she was right. With time, the pain and the grief hurt less, but I've never forgiven that ankylosaurus for killing my parents and I don't think I ever will. Now every time I see an ankylosaurus, I get so mad and I just can't control myself."

"I can't believe you had to witness something so horrible," Melody whispered.

"I'm sorry for judging you, Subari! I didn't know…how could we have known? That's absolutely terrible!" Jenny leant closer and embraced the weeping dragon fairy.

After the hug, Subari wiped her tears. "It still doesn't excuse what I did. It was a harmless, innocent dinosaur like you said. I killed it because a member of its species did something years ago."

"Killed it?" Cristina snorted. "You annihilated it! After your final strike, there was nothing of it left, except charred and cracked armor plates."

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd be this powerful. We need to get you to Alfea asap!" Jenny decided.

"But how? We don't have a boat, we can't reach Miss Faragonda, and there's that magical protection shield keeping us here," her BFF summed up their hopeless situation.

"Then we're just going to have to break that shield."

* * *

A while later, when Subari had regained her strength, the Winx Club found themselves zipping through the waves around Pyros. Cristina had drawn and conjured up a speedboat, which she now steered in the direction of open water.

"How far out do you think we need to go?" Natsuki asked.

"At least a couple miles further from where out boat was…well…bitten in half. We were able to fly to Pyros after that, so we must've already passed the protection shield," Jenny reckoned.

When they passed the spot where a hainosaurus had mangled their boat, Cristina slowed down the speedboat, so they all wouldn't die if it torpedoed against the protection shield. Their speedboat kept going at a leisurely pace until it crashed into 'something'. The five girls were knocked over from the sudden jolt, but luckily Cristina had slowed down earlier.

"What was that?" Melody groaned as she got back up.

"I think we've just reached the protection shield," Subari murmured. Because Cristina conjured up the speedboat with her magic, it couldn't penetrate the magical protection shield of Pyros. Yet the fairies had no clue where to look for the barrier because it was invisible.

Cristina stretched out both her arms and shot two purple twinkling orbs out in front of their speedboat. Her twinkling spell seemed to hit something and flurried up and down what looked like a big wall. From a cascade of purple lights, the invisible barrier revealed itself as a giant translucent gold dome reaching all the way around Pyros.

"Well, at least it isn't impervious to magic," Cristina shrugged. Then Melody jumped into the ocean and swam to the dome. The magical protection shield stretched out under water too, making it a big sphere and not just a dome. Pyros was basically trapped in a magic snow globe, but with volcanoes and swamps instead of snow.

Melody dove and when she reached the gold shield, she pushed against it, but that was all. She didn't feel a shock or feel the barrier give way. Nope, it was just like a wall of glass she could put her face against, but nothing else. Yet then a Leedsichtys, a prehistoric fish the size of a school bus, passed under her and swam right through the shield as if it weren't even there.

Melody had seen enough. She swam to the surface and told the other Winx that anything magical couldn't pass through, but that regular animals had no problem at all.

"Okay, are we just going to sit here and look at this stupid protection shield or are we actually going to do something about it? Magic Winx!" Subari cried. Instantaneously, the new Winx Club transformed and flew up in the air.

"Hé, you actually used our catch phrase," Jenny smiled.

Subari shrugged, "Hé, if I'm going to be part of the team, I may as well join the 'Magic Winx'-dealio."

"Let's see what this shield is made of. Solar flash!" Jenny put her hands together and a radiant miniature sun shot from them and hit the barrier. Yet the dome didn't change at all. "Not a scratch!"

"Let me try. Want to give me a hand, Melody?" Natsuki beckoned to the mermaid fairy. The two put their hands together, which then glowed turquoise. From the depths of the ocean, a long, slick seaweed rose up and obeyed the fairies' call. The two girls aimed at the protection shield and the seaweed followed, but it hit the dome and curled downwards alongside it. Magic sea plants couldn't penetrate the barrier either.

"Well, there's no sense in me trying anything," Cristina frowned, but then she turned to Subari, "Maybe your magic can get through since you're from Pyros?"

"Here goes nothing! Gronckle," Subari put her hands together and a big fireball torpedoed against the protection shield. It took a while for the smoke to settle, giving the Winx a little hope, but unfortunately the barrier was unharmed. "What? Pff, darn, that shield is tough."

"Let's give it everything we got!" Jenny roared. The Winx lined up next to each other in the air and the five of them simultaneously fired an energy beam at the dome. They kept blasting the protection shield, until it suddenly seemed to flicker, vanishing one moment and reappearing the next.

"Yes, it's actually working!" Natsuki cheered.

"Keep going!" Subari spurred her friends on. The Winx pushed themselves and used all their might to hit the dome. Then it vanished at once. The fairies immediately stopped firing.

"We did it! Freedom!" Melody shouted as she flew straight to where the dome had been. Yet then she smacked right against an invisible wall. The protection shield was still there.

"Mmm, maybe it was just my spell that ran out?" Cristina offered.

"You couldn't have thought of that before I crashed into it?" Melody rubbed her sore spots.

"Nooo, this was funnier," she snickered. The other Winx laughed, but then Jenny said:

"This isn't funny."

"Thank you!" Melody crossed her arms and glared at the rest of her friends.

"No, you were pretty hilarious, but there's nothing funny about this protection shield. Like Cristina said, we don't have a boat, we can't reach Miss Faragonda, and we can't break the magical protection shield. We're trapped forever."


End file.
